A Wintery Week

This past week has been very wintery. One phenomenon that is characteristic of the winter in Cantwell is the hand-off between cold temperatures and wind. We've been "enjoying" -30 and colder temperatures rather regularly, but when it starts to rise, it's because the wind has started to blow. A -10 degree day isn't too bad to partake in some outdoor activity, but with the wind howling, it makes it much less inviting. Yesterday and today, however, we seem to be getting a dose of both: -30 degrees with a crazy amount of wind. Rob figured out that at -30 degrees and a 30 mph wind, it actually feels like -67 degrees with the windchill factor. That can give someone frostbite in a matter of minutes without the right gear! So, we've been having a quiet, (the kids would say "boring") few days.

I got online today a viewed some pictures of the amazing Aurora Borealis show in the sky on Tuesday. We had cloud-cover that night here, but there was a beautiful display in quite a few locations. Here is a link to the weather channel article and photos/video:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/solar-radiation-storm-ignites-aurora_2012-01-25

Last week I took a few pictures of the mountains just south of our home. A the top of Mt. McKinley you can see quite a bit of snow kicking up in the wind (looks like a cloud).










Doubt you can read it, but Rob got real romantic on me a couple nights ago when we were dishing up some ice cream. He made the following inscription with a knife in the top: Rob + Erin

Instead of playing "catch-up"

So, I've been thinking about trying to update this blog since I haven't published a post on it since our dip-netting fishing trip in July. That is a very dauting task, and I've come up with what I believe to be a pretty decent solution.

Since we started homeschooling Connor and Samantha this fall, one of their weekly assignments has been to keep up a blog of their own. They each post a paragraph or so every week (approximately); usually with a few pictures. This is to teach them to verbalize and write about things that they are experiencing and how they feel about those things. We focus on their thoughts as well as language skills. Also, Connor gets some typing practice in as he types most of his entries. (Samantha is learning to type, but is not far enough along to know all the letters or be fast enough to type more than a sentence or two in 10 minutes. She dictates her thoughts to me, instead.)

All of this is to say that I've decided to link this to their blogs, because they have really touched on a lot of the highlights that our family has experienced from the end of August until now. I am hoping to add a new post once a week myself from now on, so that you all can continue to see what God is doing in our lives with some of the sights and memories that we are having.

Here are the URLs for the kiddos' blogs:
www.rcahomeschoolblog.blogspot.com (Connor's)
www.scahomeschoolblog.blogspot.com (Samantha's)